Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex all support a standard they call “schema.org”. Schema.org is modestly described as “on-page markup [that] enables search engines to understand the information on web pages and provide richer search results…” or in a word, semantic metadata.
Schema.org is of significance as a foundation for some truly extraordinary capabilities of both immediate and long term significance to every business with a web presence. When fully realized, the role of search engines and the websites they canvass will have substantially changed by making web structure explicit (by rewarding relevance and richness). The search engines and other applications built on top of semantically-enriched websites stand to ascend a value chain –responding with answers rather than merely pages, synthesizing reports from latent associations in the data, and reasoning about our intent based on the meanings of our queries.
Fortunately the immediate value of schema.org is of hard dollars-and-cents significance for marketers seeking to use search engines to expose their deep web data, to appear in more and more relevant contexts and to enhance their appearance amidst a myriad competitors vying to be clicked. It is well established that “sponsored links” are at least 6 times less likely to be clicked on than organic results. So the real breakthrough in the world of search engine optimization comes in providing methods for affecting presence in organic results.
For better or worse, the search engines are increasingly the “front door” to our customers, where they define a search goal and hope they get the correct answer. As we know it is often difficult to ask the right question, and increasingly difficult to filter and find the best answer. Part of the problem is sheer volume and the other is relevance.
By adding more details in a well considered and structured fashion we do better by doing well for our customers and prospects. By anticipating their needs we are able to appear at the time and in the place where it most matters. If we act first, we’ll gain the advantage of time, knowledge and experience. Customers will tell us what works by booking our rooms. Over time, we can try numerous alternatives to advance the benefits and appear in greater numbers of search results at a lower cost per sale.
Thematix has had recent, direct and very successful experience with Schema.org semantic markup on behalf of clientele in the hospitality and publishing industries, and welcomes the opportunity to show you how to enhance your own web presence through the use of semantic markup.
